


Neopolitan

by Sundaemon



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Drug Use, Gen, Gun Violence, No Romance, Platonic Relationships, Violence, Weapons, honestly wtf am I doing, mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:16:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sundaemon/pseuds/Sundaemon
Summary: NEO CITY, 2071 — Morpheus Unit, a seven-member collective of some of the best counterintelligence agents in the city, is one of the top units working at the Neo City Special Operations Division. While investigating a recent disappearance within the special ops division, they discover a rising threat, one that hits them much too dangerously close to home.Though Morpheus Unit has always kept an unbreakable bond, their newest mission now threatens to tear the group apart, force loyalties to waver, and ultimately, turn their entire worldview upside down.





	1. The Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> Before we begin, I must stress to you that the relationships between all these characters will be kept strictly PLATONIC. If you are looking for your ships or whatever, I’m sorry, but you will not find them here.
> 
> I also will not have a consistent update schedule for this, because to tell you the truth, I don’t really have a clear idea of where this story is going. I only have some very, very basic plot points down, but otherwise I’m just making it up as I go (which is not a very good plan in and of itself lol). If it seems like I have disappeared off the face of the Earth at some point, just don’t be surprised.
> 
> Other than that, please enjoy!

“Mark, do you copy? Over.” Chenle’s voice buzzed over the transmitter.

Mark’s hand reached up to lightly press his earpiece. “Yes, Chenle. I hear you loud and clear. Over.”

Upon hearing his voice, their communications conductor’s tone lost its professional edge the moment Mark confirmed his presence. “Okay, look man, we’ve been waiting out here for about an hour now. Jisung is _still_ waiting for your signal, so I hope you’re quick about this.”

“Tell him to hold it until Jeno and Haechan get to Renjun, because I am _not_ about to have the townhouse blow with the three of them in there,” said Mark.

“Yeah, you’ve been saying that for the past hour,” Chenle grumbled.

“Chenle, I mean it.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll make sure to relay it to him. Over,” said Chenle. With a faint click, he closed the connection, and Mark was left alone with him and his binoculars again.

He brought them up against his face, peering through the series of lenses compacted in his binoculars, and into the dilapidated building. The townhouse exterior reflected its rundown neighbourhood for sure, and from what Mark could see through the windows, its insides didn’t really seem any better. He frowned, wishing that he could be chilling at home with a box of takeout instead of out on the job. It’s been a tiring week down at the Neo City Special Operations Division.

Their supervising officer, Qian Kun, had assigned Mark’s unit the mission last minute this morning. While it didn’t call for everyone on the job—more specifically, it called for their negotiator Renjun—his disappearance for the next eight hours had certainly turned the mission into one for the entire unit. Now nearing 7:30pm, Morpheus Unit found itself closing in on a drug den in one of Neo City’s many slums, trying to rescue Renjun.

A new voice sounded in his earpiece. Haechan. His voice was frantic. “Haechan to Mark, can you check if there’s anybody up on the third floor?”

Mark moved his view over to the third floor windows, which were now lighting up one by one in the dark. “Yes, third floor’s lighting up. They know you’re coming.” He noticed figures shifting by the first floor windows, brief shadows too quick to be seen clearly. “First floor has reinforcements coming. Where are you two?”

Haechan swore. “Jeno’s on the staircase finishing with the first floor thugs. I’m on second, but now the third floor—” he let out a grunt as Mark heard the crunch of a fist on bone, “—bastards are coming down too—PISS OFF!”

Mark could hear the crash of someone slamming against the wall. “Jesus,” he muttered, bringing his binoculars down. “Alright, I’m coming in there.”

“No, we got this!” said Haechan. “Just sit until we get Renjun and give the signal to Jisung!”

“Like hell I’m just going to sit here and listen to you get cornered and have your asses beat!” Mark was already scaling down from his vantage point, which was from the roof of a nearby building. “Chenle, you got that? I’m going in.”

Chenle responded with a short delay. “Hold on, Jisung was wondering where you were going…and wait what, who’s gonna give the signal?”

“You’re going to be our messenger. I’ll tell you once we’re ready and we’re all out, and then I want you to tell Jisung that as quickly as you can. Got it?”

Haechan and Chenle’s protests came all at once, but he quickly shushed them. “I _said_ , you got it?”

“…Yes. Over.” They knew better than to argue with their unit commander on a mission.

Mark was nearing the townhouse now, and since the drug den was already aware of Morpheus Unit’s presence, he simply elected to go in through the front door.

The inside of the building was really worse off than Mark expected, but not uncommon to what he’s seen on the job. Layers of dust and dirt covered the peeling vinyl flooring, and the white walls, yellowed with age, sported questionable stains on them. And even worse, a portion of the thugs had noticed his arrival, promptly turning their attention to him.

Mark had a fleeting moment of fear flutter in his heart, as he always did before every fight, but his training quickly took over. He deflected a punch to his face, quickly sidestepping, and planted a solid upper cut below the thug’s chin. Three more came to replace the fallen one, and Mark wasted no time taking them down as well. One received a mouthful of broken teeth, another got kneed in the balls, and the last crashed through the drywall into the adjacent room from a well-timed kick.

“Mark!” Jeno exclaimed when he got to the staircase. The special ops agent, one of the two in Morpheus, was in the midst of bashing someone’s head into the steel banister. “Haechan’s upstairs. I don’t know how much longer he can handle them!”

“Yeah, I’ll go help,” said Mark. “And where’s Renjun?”

“Third floor supply closet, end of hallway,” said Jeno. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Yeah,” Mark agreed, even though they both knew Jeno was going to be spending a fair bit of time trying to keep the first floor thugs away from them.

As Mark scrambled up the staircase, he noted the wake of destruction that they had left behind, a trail of bodies and overturned furniture. Upon stepping foot on the second floor, he heard Haechan scream, “Mark, GET DOWN!” He immediately dropped to the ground, bullets whizzing past where he was only moments before. He scrambled to hide behind a nearby wall, and almost screamed when a pair of arms grabbed the hem of his shirt to pull him in.

“It’s me, it’s me!” said Haechan, hands up in defence to Mark’s reaction. His chest heaved up and down in ragged breaths.

Mark let out a relieved sigh. “Holy shit, I was about to pull my knife on you.”

“You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, dumbass,” said Haechan. “Do you have any spare ammo on you? I’m all out.”

Mark pulled out his pistol from his gun holster, as well as two extra cartridges of bullets, which he handed to Haechan. They all carried the same standard issue gun anyway.

Mark adjusted his grip on his gun. He heard the familiar click of Haechan’s gun reloading. It was time to head back out. “I’ll take the lead and get us to that wall closer to the stairs. Think you can cover both our backs?”

Haechan smirked. “Is that even a question? Let’s go.”

Mark took a deep breath and launched himself back into the fray.

Though it couldn’t have been more than five metres to the next shelter from the incoming storm of bullets, Mark sprinted for his life, praying to God that both he and Haechan weren’t in the line of fire of the guns pointed at them. They dove behind the cover once they were close enough, the gunners be damned.

Mark risked a peek around the corner at the shooters, to find that unsurprisingly, their guns were still trained on them. One fired a warning shot at him, but he ducked back behind the wall just in time.

“Alright, we’re never going to get through like this. We’ll need to go when they’re reloading,” said Mark.

Haechan nodded, then tilted his head, spotting something behind Mark.

“What?” asked Mark.

He stretched his hands out towards a nearby body on the ground, taking the sleeve of its shirt, and dragging it behind the wall with them.

“What are you…?”

“Mark, we’re going upstairs and getting Renjun out of here whether anyone likes it or not.”

Mark blinked. “Uh yeah, that’s been the plan all along. Doesn’t explain the body.”

Haechan rolled his eyes. “We’re going to use it as a shield from the bullets, duh.”

“…You serious?”

“Dead serious.”

As much as Mark questioned the ethics of doing this, he couldn’t think of any better solutions to their situation. Besides, Haechan’s wit at conjuring up on-field tactics had saved Morpheus Unit’s skin in the past more often than they’d like to admit. With no further questions, they took up their positions: Haechan propping up the corpse in the front, and Mark shooting their way through from the back.

And they left the safety of the wall behind them.

The shooters wasted no time firing at them. Haechan’s teeth gritted with the effort of carrying their human shield. It didn’t take long for the enemy to realize that they should get behind cover as well, but Mark quickly shot them down before they got too far. Once there were few enough people shooting at them, all scrambling to reload their empty guns, Haechan dropped the corpse, and the duo rained bullets on the remainder of them.

Mark’s gun soon clicked with the telltale sign of an empty chamber. Not wanting to stay any longer out in the open, he quickly made his way to the staircase. Haechan followed.

They went up the stairs, ears alert to any other thugs who could possibly ambush them. A crackling sound in his earpiece indicated that Chenle had come online to deliver a message.

“Jaemin said he can see that the druggies are on the move through his scope. They’re packing up and loading their equipment in the back garage.”

They had reached the top of the stairs now and was making their way down the suspiciously quiet hallway. “Wait, what?” said Mark. “They’re moving out?”

“Yeah, that’s what he said. He thinks they moved Renjun too.”

Mark looked at Haechan. Haechan looked back at Mark. They could both hear what Chenle said on the mutually shared comm connection. And they bolted to the end of the hall, not caring about possible ambushes anymore.

Arriving at a small doorway, Haechan rattled the doorknob. Locked. Mark was about to pull out his lockpick kit, but Haechan pushed him aside.

“There’s no time for that, man,” said Haechan, and kicked the door open.

Inside the small supply closet, there was a wobbly chair, a few empty syringes on the ground, an abandoned IV drip, but no Renjun.

“Aw, shit,” said Haechan.

Mark turned away. Renjun was probably making his way to the garage along with the rest of the drug den by now. Everything had been just a distraction. Why didn’t he even think about this before?!

“We’re going to the garage,” he said shortly to Haechan. “Know where it is?”

The special operative briefly nodded, and they began to run in the direction they came from. Pressing his earpiece yet again, he contacted Jeno.

“Mark to Jeno, do you copy? Over.”

“Yes, I do. Don’t worry, I’m on my way up now. They just suddenly stopped coming at me. Over.”

“No, no, do not come up here. Go to the garage, they moved Renjun.”

“Oh crap, really? Alright, I’m on it, over.”

“Okay. We’re coming now, over.”

Mark made another call to Chenle when they got down to the second floor, looking at the carnage they had left behind.

“Chenle, you copy?”

“Yup. Loud and clear.”

“Tell Jaemin to shoot at anything that is moving away from this place, and tell him to shoot it dead, or else his honour as a sniper is toast. If I don’t guarantee that, Renjun definitely will once we get him back.”

Although his unit took great pleasure in undermining Mark’s authority in their down time, they would never dare to do so in a crisis like this. Mark knew this, and so he did not shy away from testing his unit to their limits time and time again.

“…Yes, Mark. I’ll let him know. Over.”

“Alright then. Over.”

Jeno was gone by the time they reached the first floor, but the evidence of his presence was strewn all over the ground, with limp bodies and unfamiliar blood all mixing together into puddles.

“Of course, leave it to Mr. Lee Taeyong 2.0 to flex his fine handiwork all over the place,” Haechan muttered under his breath.

Mark could still hear him. “Hey,” he chided. “Now’s not the time for insecurities.”

His friend went silent, but carried on nonetheless.

As they neared the garage, the crashes and the gunshots became louder and louder. Jeno was already there, wreaking havoc with whoever was in the garage. By instinct, Mark and Haechan pulled out their guns, creeping silently closer and closer to the door. Being the one in front, Haechan’s hand slowly reached for the doorknob, and quickly threw it open.

Chaos awaited them. More dead bodies littered their path, lying among the overturned shelves and broken equipment. A single hanging lightbulb swung side to side from the ceiling, casting the room with wild moving shadows. Jeno was a blur in the room, sparring with the mob of assailants throwing themselves onto him. Someone was frantically trying to turn on the engine of the grey van parked inside the garage. Gunshots echoed from somewhere outside the open garage door, presumably Jaemin picking off the thugs with his sniper rifle from a distance.

Haechan ran to assist Jeno, while Mark went off to the driver’s side of the van. The driver looked startled when he suddenly appeared in front of the window and fumbled to reach for an unseen weapon.

But Mark was faster. He grabbed the door handle and pulled. Unlocked, of course. The engine had barely started. Before the driver could even hold up the gun he had in his hand, Mark had a fistful of his hair in his grasp, and slammed his head into the steering wheel. Once. Twice. Three times. The driver slumped over, and Mark let him fall to the ground. With the seat now empty, he let himself in.

“One of the bastards is in the van!” one of the thugs shouted, and the fight quickly moved from the garage to within the van itself. As they clawed at him from the left, the right, the back—from every side, really—Haechan and Jeno followed to drag them back out of the van again. Eventually the special operatives ended up inside the van itself, trying to defend the three of them from all the thugs swarming inside.

Jeno suddenly exclaimed from the back. “Oh my god!”

“What?” said Haechan, socking someone across the face.

“Renjun’s here! In the cargo hold! Hey, back off of him!” said Jeno as he roundhouse kicked someone in the side.

“Mark!” Haechan turned to him. “We gotta go!”

He didn’t waste a second. Shifting the gear to reverse, he jammed his foot onto the gas pedal. Everyone jerked forwards as the van sped backwards out of the garage. As the special operatives and the remaining thugs all tried to regain their balance to resume their fight, Mark called their comms conductor. “Chenle!”

“Are you o—”

“Tell Jisung to blow it! NOW!”

He didn’t wait for any words of affirmation. Chenle’s connection clicked off, and a full second later, Jisung’s work went on full display as an explosion engulfed the drug den. As the orange flames bloomed in front of his vision, Mark was suddenly snapped back to reality as another set of hands grabbed the steering wheel and sharply swerved to the right.

His heart skipped a beat before coming back to his senses and swerved away from a narrowly missed fire hydrant. Everything in the back, including Jeno, Haechan, Renjun, and the thugs, tumbled from side to side with the violent movements. Turning slightly to see who was trying to crash the van with all of them in it, he jammed his right elbow into their bruised-up face. The thug held on, and Mark would have been begrudgingly impressed with them bearing the brunt of his elbow if it wasn’t for the van swerving onto the wrong side of the road now. The wheels scraped on the curb, and a passing sign post knocked out the side mirror. At this point, he was trying to focus more on keeping the van in control that getting the thug off his back. With one hand on the wheel, the other was futilely trying to jab at the thug’s weak spots in their face.

Thankfully, his members came to the rescue eventually, dragging the thug away from Mark. He assumed that they were the last one, judging by how he could hear both Haechan and Jeno beating the crap out of them in the back.

However, the van began to drive lopsidedly, with the left side dipping below the right. Slowing down, Mark could hear the air hissing out of the left side tires.

“Great, we got flat tires,” he said to Haechan and Jeno. “We can’t meet it to the rendezvous point in this.” He brought the van to a stop and went to the back to check up on the situation.

The back door was opened, which Mark assumed was for kicking the thugs out of the van. But his real concern was for his unit members, who were huddled up in a corner where Renjun lay.

They looked up at him when he approached; Haechan wore a hollow expression, while Jeno’s was one of veiled concern. Mark’s gaze dropped on Renjun, whose head was lying on Jeno’s lap, and wrist encircled in Haechan’s grasp. He was still dressed in the clothes they saw him last in, black pants and a white dress shirt, now with the sleeves rolled up and spotted with blood.

But what shocked Mark the most was the total unresponsiveness of their unit’s negotiator. His eyes were glassy, his breaths were shallow, and white foamed out of the corner of his mouth. Jeno reached down to wipe it away.

“They drugged the fuck out of him,” Haechan said plainly.

If Mark hadn’t dropped to his knees at that moment, the shock would have toppled him over anyway.

* * *

The four were the last to arrive at the rendezvous point. Any questions or comments that Chenle, Jaemin, and Jisung wanted to say died in their mouths at the sight of Renjun, who was slumped over Jeno’s shoulder in a piggyback ride. Their drive back to headquarters, contrary to what they had hoped for at the beginning of the mission, was equally sombre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding some names:  
> Neopolitan - I tried to do some word play here in combining the prefix "neo" (meaning "new", and it's also part of NCT's name). and "metropolitan" (meaning "inhabitant of a metropolis or a large city"; in this case, Neo City). Thought it sounds cool, but we'll see how this one turns out.  
> Morpheus Unit - Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams, and so guess which unit we're focusing on in this one. Haha anyone get it? Anyone? *highfives self* (I think I'm funny but I'm really not lmao.)


	2. The USB

The world lazily spun into focus as his eyes fluttered open, his consciousness floating back to the real world. His vision wasn’t fuzzed around the edges anymore; surprisingly, he was almost disappointed at this revelation.

“Wha…?” he tried to speak, but the dryness in his throat prevented any sound from coming out.

“Oh my god,” someone at the edge of his vision spoke. “You’re awake!”

_Jaemin,_ he realized belatedly.

His friend’s face slowly came into view, plastered with his award-winning smile.

“Need anything, Renjun?” he said softly.

“Water,” he rasped.

He heard the sound of running water, and soon a cold glass was pressed into his hand.

“Do you need me to help you?” Renjun could hear the humour in the sniper’s voice.

He gulped down half the glass to make a point. “I don’t need to be babied.”

Jaemin shrugged. “Your loss.” He started towards the door. “I’m gonna go get everyone else. Just sit tight, alright? I’ll be back soon.”

“Mmhmm.”

As Renjun slowly sipped on his water, he took note of his surroundings. The habit was ingrained in his instincts, developed from working in this field. He was in a hospital room, and a private one too, judging by the sole bed in the room being the one he was lying on. One glance at the cityscape out the window was all he needed to know that he was in the Neo City General Hospital. Being the largest hospital in the city-state, he knew that every injured agent from the Special Operatives Division was admitted here, although he never expected to have the luxury of a private room as well.

The gradient of navy blue in the sky outside meant it was either dawn or dusk, but he couldn’t tell which it was. Neo City, ever the glowing city of lights, never slept. The light shining through the windows of the skyscrapers and edifices in the distance were each a tiny beacon. If he were in his right mind, he could have deduced whether it was day or night from the direction of the sunlight, but the fatigue had stolen his wits away. All he did now was simply to watch the city and admire its star-like view.

The automatic doors to his room slid open with a quiet hiss, and in walked his six unit members. Chenle immediately ran forward to squeeze him in a hug, and once he was done, Renjun was tackled with another one from Haechan. Jisung told him a lame joke to lighten his mood, and all Jeno needed to do was to smile his usual eye-smile at him. Mark, their unit commander, gave him a comforting squeeze on the shoulder, and said, “Glad you’re back with us.”

A disgruntled nurse, who Renjun hadn’t even realized had come in, had to pull them off of him to check his vitals. As soon as he left the room with a reassuring word, his friends all quickly came to sit in a half-circle around his bed again. Jaemin handed back his glass of water.

“What time is it?” asked Renjun.

“It’s Wednesday morning,” said Chenle, tapping his wristwatch awake. “6:28am.”

He almost spat out his water. “I’ve been out for five days?!”

Jisung nodded. “The drug fiends were using a bunch of drugs on you. Saw from the report that it was a mix of seven different kinds.”

Jaemin interrupted before he could go any further. “Jisung, you’re scaring him.”

Jisung clapped his hand over his mouth. “Ah, sorry, _hyung_!”

Renjun shook his head. “It’s okay, I want to know,” he said.

Mark cleared his throat, trying to figure out the gentlest way to explain everything to him. “Well, they’ve been trying to detox you the best they can for the past few days. From, you know,” he waved his hand, “The seven different drugs. It’ll take a pretty long while.”

“But hey, at least you woke up,” said Haechan, and playfully slapped him on the arm.

Speaking of which, Renjun still didn’t know why they were all here at the hospital at 6:30 in the morning. “And so did you guys,” he joked. “Why are you all here so early? And five days after, for that matter.” He noticed Mark, Haechan, and Jeno suddenly lowering their eyes.

“There’s always been at least one person staying here on rotation in case you woke up,” said Jaemin. “But we’re all at the hospital when we’re off work.”

“Ah, come on guys, don’t torture yourself. Go home!” said Renjun.

“Well, it started out with Mark because he felt bad about the situation, and then that guilt-tripped Donghyuck and Jeno into staying. Then Chenle and Jisung felt like they were missing out on a party or something, so then they came. And if everyone else is here, then I might as well stay too.”

Renjun looked at the commander and the two special operatives with their downturned eyes. “The situation? It wasn’t good, was it?”

Mark skirted around the question. “It was, uh, not ideal.”

“Lots of things that could have gone better,” Haechan added.

Renjun fell back onto the mountain of pillows behind him in a huff. “Oh, come on, let’s just get to the point.”

The three of them shared a look between each other, before Mark started his recount of events. Renjun listened attentively as he told him about how they had realized that something was wrong when he had cut off all his comm connections, and they were unable to contact him in any way even after he was two hours late on the deadline. Mark had sent Jeno to the drug den to figure out what was happening, eventually realizing that they had to pull together a rescue mission in the end.

“And then we eventually found you unresponsive in the back of the van,” Mark ended lamely.

“Sorry you guys had to come get me. I should have been more careful,” said Renjun.

“Oh no!” Mark protested. “We should have come to get you sooner, or I should have made some more safety precautions…but now you’re like this…I’m sorry, Renjun.”

“Hey, Mark- _hyung._ ” Renjun reached out to pat his arm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. And you guys too,” he said, nodding at Haechan and Jeno.

Seeing everyone’s dejected faces, Renjun tried to change the subject. “Here, I got something.” He craned his neck to look around the room. “Where are my clothes?”

“Are you concerned with looking good in the hospital or something?” said Jisung. “I think you’re only allowed to wear a hospital gown.”

There it was, that endearing dumbness that his unit always seemed to possess, which simultaneously ticked off Renjun’s nerves and brightened his days. He rolled his eyes as a usual response. “Obviously not my normal clothes. I’m talking about the clothes I wore when I went out on the mission.”

Jeno got up from the bed walked off to the far corner of the room; where he picked a package up from a plastic table. When he returned, holding it out to Renjun, he realized that it was his clothes, neatly folded and covered in plastic.

“It should have gone to forensics when we got you back, but we’ve managed to stall them,” he said. “If you didn’t wake up within the week, they would have forced it out of our hands.”

Renjun took it from him. “Thank you, guys.” He set it in his lap, and carefully unwrapped it, his fingers delicately peeling back the plastic. His unit watched curiously, the crinkling plastic the only sound in the room, besides all the machines hooked up to his body. Upon opening up the package, he unravelled his black dress pants, still covered in a layer of dust. He searched for a hidden lining in his pants, and fished out a small USB drive.

“Ta-da!” he beamed, holding up the flash drive. “I’m not the top negotiator for nothing, so at least something came out if it.”

“What’s that?” asked Mark.

“I didn’t exactly negotiate for this,” said Renjun, “But it’s a partial copy of the hard drive on the computer back at the drug den. Had to do a bit of sneaking to get this, so it’s not the complete thing.” He pressed it into Chenle’s hand. “Hopefully you can make some use out of it though.”

“Oh wow, _hyung,_ ” said Chenle, taken aback. “Thanks. Like, really.”

Renjun waved it away. “Yeah, yeah, no problem. Just a part of the job. Now,” he said, stretching his mouth open with a yawn. “It’s still early as hell in the morning, and you should all go get some sleep before your shifts start. And I mean like back home, not on the hospital lobby benches.”

The rest of Morpheus Unit slowly began getting up from his bed, and Renjun could feel the pressure lift from the mattress. “You’ll be okay though, right?” asked Jaemin.

“Yeah. I’m at Neo City General Hospital, man,” said Renjun. “I can just call a nurse or something.”

Though they all seemed a bit reluctant to leave, his unit members slowly made their way to the door, respecting his wishes of wanting to be left alone for a while. He felt the slight guilt of kicking them out twist in his stomach, and so he added, “Come over and have dinner with me if you want later, if that sounds good?”

It worked well enough, and a small smile crept over their faces. They all left after saying their brief goodbyes.

“Thanks for this, by the way. Again,” said Chenle, holding up the flash drive. The door shut behind him, and Renjun was left alone in the silent room, save for the humming of the machines at his side.

He let out a sigh. He desperately wanted to stretch, after lying in bed for the past five days, but everything just ached too much for him to really move his limbs. Eventually, he elected to sink into sheets to go back to sleep. His face was turned towards the window, and so the last thing he saw as his eyes fluttered close was the glittering cityscape at dawn.

* * *

It had been three days since their visit with Renjun, yet Chenle still had barely a clue on how to crack the contents of the flash drive he was given. Well actually, he was pretty sure he had gotten through all the unimportant and unencrypted petty files, but looking at the amount of storage being used up in the drive, it just didn’t add up to the amount of things he had already uncovered. Maybe these drug dealers were actually better than he expected, but the thought of people like them besting him at his own game annoyed him to no end. Sure, his family may be from the Inner District, and sure, people might want to believe that his parents had paid his way through the Academy, but he had still graduated and had been placed in Morpheus Unit of his own merit, okay?

“Chenle, you good?”

He was pulled out of his thoughts, and found Mark looking at him.

 “Yeah, I am,” he said.

“Alright then. It’s just that you looked annoyed for a minute there.”

“I just…argh!” He flopped back onto the couch he was sitting on, his laptop still precariously balancing on his legs. “There is something up with this USB but I just can’t figure out what.”

Halfway through the morning, Chenle had moved out of his office and into the lounge in hopes that the new change of scenery would inspire him with new ways to crack the contents of the USB, but evidently, that effort was proving fruitless. People had come and gone, he had enjoyed a small break in annoying their supervising officer Kun, and Jaemin, who was only other person in their unit that was somewhat knowledgeable about electronics, had tried to suggest some ideas that ultimately did not go anywhere.

And now, although he was very fond of Mark, Chenle didn’t exactly know how he could help in his situation, as Mark was arguably the most electronically illiterate in Morpheus Unit.

However, Mark still had his eyebrows furrowed, still in thought. After a short pause, he asked, “So, do you want to go out for some poutine then?”

It was way past lunchtime, and he had barely gotten any work finished today, but Chenle was just so done with sitting in front of a screen getting nowhere. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

Walking out of the Neo City Special Operations Division headquarters, Chenle could finally breathe a breath of fresh air. Although headquarters, surrounded by skyscrapers and glass towers, was located in the middle of the Inner District like many of the government buildings, it certainly felt less claustrophobic out here. The skyway maglev trains criss-crossed above the streets, holographic info boards displayed ads, maps, and government PSAs, while the occasional cleaning robot rolled around to pick up litter and trash. The Inner District represented the very picture of a modern city.

Chenle recognized the path that Mark was taking them on; it led to the Neo City Counterintelligence Academy. Him and Jisung had walked this path many times while they were cadets still in training, albeit backwards, to catch a glimpse of the division they would now work in. It was evident that Mark was familiar with the path as well, since he also knew about the shortcut through a back alley occupied by cafés and bakeries. Chenle and Jisung had creatively nicknamed it the “Café Alley” in their past, and as they passed the whimsical little shops, Chenle was reminded that they hadn’t visited the place in a long while. _Perhaps another time_ , he thought.

They didn’t go directly to the Academy, but rather, to a diner nearby. It was a small one, and there couldn’t have been more than ten tables in the restaurant. Since it wasn’t exactly at its peak hours at the moment, it was relatively empty inside, save for one of the cooks eating their late lunch on a table near the counter.

They got a table by the window, so that they can watch the people walk by outside.

“Do you want anything in particular?” Mark asked.

“I thought we’re here for poutine?”

“Oh yeah, that’s true I guess.”

When the server came along, Mark didn’t even need to look at the menu to make an order. “Two cheeseburgers and one poutine _,_ please.”

After entering their order into a small tablet, the server left them in peace.

“You know, I used to come here a lot when I was still a cadet,” said Mark, looking out the window. “I really loved the poutine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Mark continued. “The food was cheap, and it was good.”

Chenle remembered something. “Wait, is this the place where you always came with Donghyuck- _hyung,_ Jaemin- _hyung_ …like, everyone else?” He had never personally stepped in this place before, because every time the group went out to eat with Chenle, they had gone somewhere way above their price range, as their meals were always paid for out of his parents’ wallets. However, he had heard about “the poutine place” from his friends before, from when he didn’t join them to eat.

“Yeah, it is.” Mark glanced at the counter and the one employee still eating his lunch. “There’s something strange though. This place used to be family owned. I don’t know what happened, but when I came to eat one day, the food was different. The menu wasn’t any different, the restaurant wasn’t any different, but the food just tasted different. It didn’t taste… _right_ anymore.”

Chenle leaned forward with the suspense.

“Later on, I found out that the family that owned this place had disappeared. I don’t know why or how they disappeared, but all I know is that they did. If you didn’t know what this place was like before, or if you don’t look closely enough, you’d never know that something is just…different. In fact,” Mark waved his hands around the room, “This place still looks the same after all these years.”

“But, if they disappeared, why go through the trouble of keeping it the same?” asked Chenle.

Mark shrugged. “Beats me.”

Their food arrived, and they both immediately shut up about the matter, keeping suspiciously quiet while the server placed their food in front of them. Two open faced cheeseburgers and a big red plate of poutine, just as Mark ordered. They dug in.

“So, if it doesn’t taste the same anymore, why do you keep coming here?” Chenle asked, after taking a bite of his burger.

Mark almost looked wistful for a split second but covered it with a slight grin. “I guess I just keep hoping it’ll taste the same again.”

Chenle didn’t need Renjun’s people reading skills to tell that was a lie. He knew that the real reason Mark ate here often, even with the strange food and shady circumstances, was because it reminded him of his home country.

Everyone in the unit knew each others’ backgrounds, but in his opinion, Mark’s was the most tragic. His unit commander had come from an immigrant family to Neo City, but having been orphaned at a young age, he became a child of the state at age 12. Yet Mark never forgot his heritage; in fact, his name was a reflection of it. Mark Lee. First name before the last.

They didn’t dwell on the topic for any longer and ate their food while talking about other lighter matters. The poutine was okay, nothing too special in Chenle’s opinion. Mark’s face gave away that he had a disappointing first bite, but nevertheless, he was still the one that ate the most from the plate.

After they finished their food, and Mark insisted on paying for the both of them, they returned to the headquarters, now late in the afternoon. It wasn’t until Chenle sat down in front of his computer again that he realized that he hadn’t thought about the flash drive even once while he was out.

Looks like Mark actually did know how to help his situation.

* * *

Renjun was discharged from the hospital the next day, having been deemed physically fit enough to return to duty. Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, and Chenle went to pick him up after work in Jeno’s car. It was board game night, to celebrate Renjun coming back to work. Mark and Jisung would come after running some errands.

Jeno was driving them towards their condominium building, which sat between the Upper Entertainment District and the Financial District. It was a state-provided and state-regulated home for its employees, and many of its tenants worked in the various secretive departments within the government. People quickly learned the common etiquette of not asking questions about work when they moved in. Despite this, it was still considered a perk to have a unit in this condominium, as housing prices in Neo City were through the roof.

Jeno and Chenle didn’t live in this condo though; their family status ensured that they had their own places elsewhere in the Inner District. Still, they crashed over here often enough for their unit members’ home to be their second.

Turning into a side street, Jeno pulled into the driveway to the underground parking lot and stopped in front of the barrier. An automated voice spoke from the security touchscreen, “Please state your name and status, then place your thumb on the sensor.”

Reaching out the window, Jeno pressed his left thumb on the sensor. “Lee Jeno, guest of Unit 2402.”

The barrier retracted, clearing the car’s path. “Welcome, Lee Jeno- _ssi_. Please continue forwards and park in Guest Lot D-24.” The directional signs hanging from the ceiling blinked to display arrows pointing to where the guest lot was. He diligently followed. The car was parked within the minute.

“Hey, make sure you take all your stuff,” said Jeno, popping opening the trunk. “And you guys help Renjun carry his!”

“Ah, Jeno, really, I’m not completely helpless,” said Renjun, although he was more than happy to stand aside and let his friends take it.

“ _Hyung_ , be careful of my laptop!” Chenle’s voice cut in.

“Be careful of where you’re putting it,” Haechan retorted. “And why are you bringing work over? We’re off duty.”

Chenle slung the strap of the laptop bag over his shoulder, shaking his head. “I just have to figure some things out.”

“Suit yourself,” said Haechan, taking a bag from the trunk. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you if you don’t have fun.”

“Nah, don’t worry, I will,” he said, “Because I’m Chenle.”

“Tch.” Haechan playfully ruffled Chenle’s hair. “You happy virus.”

The five of them left the parking lot, into the elevator, and went up to Renjun’s unit. Pressing his fingers on the sensor and tapping in a pin on the front door’s keypad, Renjun opened the door to his home, letting them all in. It was dark inside, naturally, as he hadn’t been home for a week, but that changed upon him announcing his arrival home—saying “It’s Renjun who brightens the world!”—that the lights flickered on. Everyone facepalmed in exasperation.

They dumped everything next to the couches, eager to begin playing. Normally they would have been competing in the newest release of some multiplayer video game whenever they all came to hang out together, but they enjoyed the old school vibes of board games every once in a while. At least, they often liked to joke, it gave Mark a fighting chance to win at something. Tonight, they had _Railways of the World_ set up on the living room coffee table. At some point in the background, Renjun’s AI home assistant started playing some lo-fi beats while they were connecting routes on the game board.

Jeno, finishing his round, looked up at Chenle and asked, “Hey, aren’t you gonna play?”

He ignored Jeno’s question for a bit, not realizing that it was directed towards him, until he noticed the silence after his question. “What? Um, were you asking me?”

“Yeah, you. No one else is looking at their laptops here.”

Uncharacteristic of his usual play-first-work-later attitude, Chenle had been quiet for the most part during their game, sporadically typing on his laptop in furious bursts. Even with the music playing in the background, it almost seemed a little too quiet for everyone’s comfort.

Chenle sighed. “I think I’m on the verge of breakthrough here with the USB drive. I just…need a little more time.”

“You sure you don’t want to leave that for, you know, when we’re _actually_ at work?” asked Renjun.

“Something about this is bothering me,” he said, shaking his head. “And I’m really, _really_ close to finding out what. I think.”

Everyone else looked at each other, weirded out that Chenle, of everyone in the unit, was being so serious about work. Though he was visibly frustrated, there wasn’t much that anyone else could do.

“Just come and chill with us when you’re ready,” Renjun offered.

Chenle nodded, still preoccupied with all the codes swimming on the laptop screen.

Mark and Jisung eventually came around, bringing pizza, fried chicken, and drinks.

“Oh, thank god you two are here,” said Haechan, making a beeline for the food being set up on the dining table. “I was about to die of starvation.”

“You know delivery-bots are a thing, right?” said Mark.

“Yeah, but why pay for that when we have a kind and generous commander to treat us?” Haechan’s sarcasm was palpable in the words ‘kind and generous’.

Mark almost fought him right then and there.

Once everyone, even Chenle, had a plate of food, Mark and Jisung joined in with the board games on the coffee table. They had now switched to playing _Settlers of Catan._ Chenle worked throughout their multiple rounds of resource-collecting and settlement-building.

“Wow, okay then!” Mark said in mock excitement as he rolled a three for the third time in a row, despite not being able to collect anything on that number.

“Mark- _hyung,_ you _definitely_ shouldn’t buy a lotto ticket today,” commented Jisung.

Mark handed the die to the next player, Jaemin. “You know that gambling’s illegal now, right?” It had been banned years ago, but the law was still implemented within the youngest’s lifetime for him to know what the government deemed as “gratuitous and unnecessary monetary spending”.

Chenle cut into their conversation at that moment, desperately muttering, “Oh no, no, no, no, no…”

Mark immediately abandoned his previous conversation and turned to him. “What’s wrong?”

Everyone else stopped as well, looking at him with concern. The lo-fi music carried on in the silence, an eerie background noise in the quickly escalating situation.

“...I thought the coding looked familiar,” said Chenle, his voice fragile, “And now I know why.” He put his face into his hands.

_Catan_ was forgotten by now, with everyone focusing on their clearly distraught friend. “Why?” pressed Mark.

He didn’t respond, but simply chose to point at the laptop screen.

They all moved at once, pressing themselves next to Chenle to take a look at the screen.

A coding analysis program had finished running on the laptop. In bold Arial font, it displayed its findings: _93% Match - Programmer ID: Dong Sicheng._


	3. The Connection

They had been waiting for only ten minutes, but to Haechan, it felt like an hour. He was never the patient type, but waiting outside Kun’s office to drop a bombshell on him while the rest of his unit had been on edge for the last 15 hours was really pushing his limits.

“Donghyuck, can you stop?” said Renjun, who was sitting on a plush chair with his elbows on his knees, his arms propping up his tired and drooping head.

“Stop what?”

“Stop the walking.”

He looked around, snapped out of his daze. Renjun was right; he had been pacing back and forth the perimeter of the waiting room. The entirety of Morpheus Unit was there, waiting to report their latest discovery to their supervising officer, though really only Chenle, Renjun, and Mark needed to be there. Chenle, because he was the one who found out; Renjun, because he could be Chenle’s voice when he felt too broken to speak; and Mark, because he was their leader.

And Haechan wondered why _he_ was the one pacing around the room.

The office door opened. Kun poked his head outside into the waiting room. “Morpheus?”

“Here.” Mark stood up.

“Sorry for the wait, I was briefing Kratos on their mission,” said Kun, and looked back inside his office. “Now you four better be more careful this time, because I’m not about to make another visit to the chief’s office to explain your actions. You got it?”

A string of grumbling ‘yeah’s, with one especially loud ‘You got it, MOM!’ above the others, came from within the office, and as the occupants came out, Haechan realized why they sounded so familiar. The four members of Kratos Unit, Lucas, Xiaojun, Hendery, and Yangyang, all filed into the waiting room.

Lucas, the unit commander of Kratos Unit, broke into a grin at the sight of them. “Oh hey, wassup! It’s Morpheus Unit!” Turning to Mark, his closest friend in Morpheus, they embraced in a bro hug with two claps on the back. The rest of the units greeted each other in a similar fashion.

“Heard you guys ran into a bit of an accident at the drug den,” continued Lucas after he pulled away. “Glad that one got sorted out.”

Haechan could see Renjun stiffen out of the corner of his eye.

“If you guys need any help, feel free to call on Kratos Unit, yeah?”

Mark cleared his throat. “Thanks for the offer, Lucas, but we probably won’t be needing it any time soon.” Haechan almost added a ‘Hell yeah, that’s right!’ to the end of Mark’s sentence, but managed to hold his words. Ever since the two commanders had been classmates, and later friends, when they were still in the Academy, they had always had some sort of a friendly competition between them, now extending to their leadership positions of their respective units.

“Alright, you guys,” Kun interrupted. “This is a real heartwarming get-together and all, but are you going to come in, Morpheus Unit?”

The string of grumbling ‘yeah’s now came from Morpheus Unit as they went into his office.

Haechan entered the office last and found the two chairs in front of Kun’s desk already occupied by Renjun and Chenle, while Mark, Jeno, Jaemin, and Jisung were all squeezed into the small office sofa.

“Uh, just find anywhere and make yourself at home, Donghyuck,” said Kun.

“It’s Haechan,” he corrected. He didn’t allow for anyone to call him by his real name, save for his family and his unit members, who were practically family anyway. As much as Kun acted like he was their mother, he wasn’t.

With the sofa out of space, he went to sit on the arm of the sofa, next to Mark.

“So, other than your last mission being a partial disaster,” Kun said, settling back into his seat behind his desk, “You said there was something urgent you wanted to talk about?”

Renjun started, “When I was at the drug den last Friday, I managed to download a partial copy of the drives and hardware of the computer they had there onto a flash drive. After my teammates recovered me from that place, I gave it to Chenle for examination, and he managed to find something.”

“You handed classified information off before running it through inspection and forensics?” questioned Kun.

“I figured it would be more beneficial to give it to a _competent_ technician rather than letting them get their hands on it,” Renjun defended.

“There are procedures for a reason,” said Kun. “Our division wouldn’t function if everyone went around doing whatever they wanted with the recovered items.”

“You know I made the right call. Chenle can do it in half the time the procedure takes,” said Renjun.

Kun didn’t bother arguing with him about that point. “I’ll be the judge of that once I hear the info you’ve dug up. Let’s hear it.”

All eyes turned to Chenle as he nervously opened up his laptop and spun the screen towards. Looking at the screen, Kun’s expression turned from confusion to shock. “What the hell is this?!”

Chenle fidgeted with his fingers as he explained. “It took a while to crack, but I would have recognized Sicheng- _gege_ ’s coding anywhere. Most of the core programs of the hardware have been done by him. Still, I wanted to run an analysis to make sure, and…and this is what happened.”

Kun just stared at him. Chenle squirmed further into his seat.

Mark, uncomfortably shifting beside Haechan, took it upon himself to clarify, though with great difficulty at saying the truth aloud. “Dong Sicheng didn’t just ‘go missing under mysterious circumstances’ like we assumed; he defected from us.”

Kun placed his elbows on his desk, clasping his hands, and pressed his forehead up against them. He didn’t speak, and no one wanted to break the silence either. They knew that Kun and Sicheng were close; they had both started working at the NCSOD at around the same time, after all.

They waited until Kun broke from his stupor. Turning on the embedded touchscreen on his desk, Kun tapped a few commands, and almost immediately Mark’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket, checking to see what was sent.

“Clearance to Records,” Kun explained. “You can find Sicheng’s file there.”

Mark nodded. “Thanks, Kun- _ge_.”

Kun spun his chair around, facing away from them. “You’re free to go. I…need some time.”

Respecting his wishes, they all quietly left his office.

* * *

The Records Department was the least visited department in NCSOD, so naturally it was located the farthest away from everything else. Mark led his unit, save for Haechan and Jeno, as they stalked through the hallways towards Records.

Entering the department, it was structured to look like a library, though the tall austere shelves were locked to contain paper documents, and the computer desks were scattered throughout in individual cubicles.

The curator looked up at him as he approached, momentarily stopping her page-flipping through the actual printed book wide open on her desk.

“Sunhee- _ssi,_ ” he greeted.

“Minhyung- _ssi_ ,” she replied.

He winced. “Just ‘Mark’ is fine, please.”

“As far as I’m concerned, your legal name is ‘Lee Minhyung’, and therefore I will address you as such.”

_But it’s not,_ he wanted to say. _They made me change it when I enrolled in the Academy._

“What brings you to Records?” asked Sunhee.

“We’re here to retrieve Dong Sicheng’s file.” He pulled out his phone and sent the file containing their clearance to the touchscreen on Sunhee’s desk. A pop-up of the clearance appeared on the screen, blinking it awake. “We’re cleared by our supervisor.”

She took a glance at the screen and raised her eyebrows. “He’s actually willing to let you investigate this?”

Mark knew what she was hinting at, but he nodded.

“Never pegged Qian Kun as the ‘work before friendship’ type, but he’s a surprising one.” Sunhee tapped a few things into her touchscreen, and the phones of every unit member buzzed. “Clearance accepted for Morpheus Unit. Enjoy.” She promptly returned to flipping through her book.

The unit shared a look between each other and shrugged, but carried on further into the department. The maze of shelves closed in on them as they walked, searching through the D section while Jaemin was on a nearby computer looking at the online catalogue. Prowling through the endless stacks of files, they zeroed in on the DO section, until Jisung triumphantly yelled, “Found it!”. He pressed his finger against the sensor on the shelf, unlocking the glass cover, and fished out File #102897. He held it proudly in the air.

“Jisung, you better put that down before you drop everything inside,” said Renjun.

“Renjun, don’t jinx it,” said Jaemin.

Jisung feigned offense. “Hey, I’m not _that_ clumsy!”

“Okay, come on, guys,” Mark interrupted. “Very funny. Jisung, put the file down, we gotta get to work.”

Jisung whined at Mark’s chiding, but eventually the five of them settled down at a nearby table, a mass of papers spread out everywhere while they had their computers turned on to browse the online archives. As hard as he was trying to comb through the documents, Mark found that the words were swimming before his eyes. After trying to read a single sentence for the fourth time already, he set it down and looked around the table.

Everyone else seemed to be having just as hard of a time as he was. Renjun’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, Jaemin had a look of concern plastered onto his face, Chenle’s eyebrows were furrowed, and Jisung was propping his head up with his hands. Mark knew why: Sicheng, or Winwin, as he was nicknamed, was one of the senior agents that Morpheus Unit was actually close to, being the former quartermaster of NCSOD. He shared the same immigrant connection as he did with both Mark and Renjun, and he had personally taught Chenle his art of hacking and programming, which put him miles ahead of other Academy graduates and the average Tech department technician.

It was almost cruel to have them be handling this case, but there really wasn’t anyone else that would tread through the investigation as delicately as they would.

“Hey, maybe we should take a short break,” Mark suggested aloud. Everyone immediately dropped what they were doing, a little too eager to get away from their work.

Jisung repeated ran his hands through his hair. “God, I just can’t believe it…Winwin- _ge_ defecting? And to who? I thought he was kidnapped, or killed, or just missing, but _defection_?”

“Well, no one really saw it coming,” said Jaemin. “He just never came back to work one day.”

“You’d think the inspectors over in the police division would be doing a better job at finding traces of wherever the hell he went,” muttered Renjun, “But clearly they suck at it.”

“Or he’s just really good at covering his tracks,” said Chenle. “I mean, they couldn’t find enough evidence that they just left it as a cold case. Nothing in his apartment, his office, or any of his electronic records; everything was clean.”

“It’s only been two months,” said Jisung. “Don’t be too quick to call it that already.”

“I’ll stop when they dig up some new evidence for me.”

“That’s what _we’re_ here to do; find out the who, what, where, when, why, and how,” said Mark. As much as he futilely tried to motivate them to continue their search with vigor, they all sullenly looked back at him.

“Mark- _hyung_ , how do we get around to this?” asked Jaemin.

He looked around the table at their expectant gazes, biting back on his words: _I don’t know._ His unit were all incredibly intelligent people, but he hated how they seemed to depend on him the most whenever he himself was at a loss. Mark understood his duty to them as their commander, but was he even strong enough to carry himself forward? _I don’t know,_ he thought. _I’m only a year or two older than you guys and I don’t have all the answers!_

But what came out of his mouth was “Alright, here’s the plan for now.”

* * *

“The more I’m out here, the more I’m glad I’m not stuck at Records with the rest of them.” Haechan stretched his arms high above his head as he walked down the street, sighing in the mild summer air.

Jeno was beside him, matching his leisurely pace. “I don’t think it’s all that bad.”

“That’s cause you’re a nerd, Jeno. A nerd who read actual paper books,” said Haechan. _And who’s able to afford actual paper books in this day and age,_ he almost added.

“Hey, you’re the one who finished playing a speed run of _Alphashock_ and managed to defeat all the secret bosses over a single weekend,” said Jeno. He playfully dug his elbow into Haechan’s side. “Who’s the bigger nerd now?”

“Ouch, I’m hurt!” Haechan jokingly feigned, clutching at his side.

The two special operatives continued their stroll and their banter until they came to a stop in front of a bar, The Hanabi Speakeasy. It was only late afternoon, so it had just opened for the night, but considering it was in the Lower Entertainment District, a few seedy looking patrons had already arrived early to drink their workday away.

“Man, wouldn’t I love to have a drink right now,” muttered Haechan as they entered. The door swung quietly shut behind them. In the background, the radio was faintly playing throwback classics: “ _VVS my diamonds, I don’t need no light to shine…”_

He straightened himself up, putting on an air of confidence. Sticking his hands into his pockets, he walked directly towards the bar. The lone bartender eyed them as they approached, but otherwise did nothing, continuing to wipe individual cocktail glasses with a white towel on the side. _Some customer service they have,_ Haechan thought.

“Hey there.” He propped himself up on a barstool. Jeno did the same. “I’d like to have a drink.”

The bartender quickly shifted his glance between the two. “ID, please.”

Normally, he would have thought of it as a compliment to get carded, but today he just felt impatient to get his work done with. After all, he and Jeno had been walking all over the district since the morning, trying link up the connection between the drug gang from the townhouse and Winwin- _ge._

_No, not Winwin-_ ge _anymore,_ he corrected himself. _He’s Dong Sicheng. The defector._

He fished out his civilian identification card, the fake one that didn’t betray the fact that he was a part of the city-state’s special ops division. The bartender plucked it from his hands, took a quick look and a quick scan with the ID machine, and promptly handed it back to him. “What you like to have today, sirs?” he said.

Haechan picked something that wouldn’t get him too hammered. “A gin and tonic, please. On the rocks.”

The bartender turned to Jeno. “And you, sir?”

“Um…rum and coke?”

Haechan almost facepalmed. _Who the hell orders a rum and coke at a bar when they can make it at home?_ But the bartender quickly began to fix up their order, mixing their drinks up right in front of them.

Drumming his fingers on the counter, Haechan tilted his head towards Jeno. Jeno looked back, and Haechan gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of the bartender. Jeno gave an equally small nod in confirmation.

“So,” Haechan started, “I heard there was an explosion in one of the Residential Sectors last week. Number 6, I think? A townhouse in the area blew up. What a story.” He was looking straight at the bartender, clearly directing the conversation towards him.

“Yes, heard about that one in passing,” the bartender said vaguely, dropping a wedge of lime into the clear glass of gin and tonic.

Haechan frowned slightly. _So he’s the clammed up kind of person, huh._ He was going to have to put a bit more effort into opening him up for information. “Rumour’s been going around saying that it was one of the local drug gangs’ den.” Dropping his voice into a murmur, he said, “I bet it probably belonged to Shiraishi Yasuo.”

He didn’t actually know if it was one of Shiraishi’s hideout; it was just a name he randomly guessed from the short list he and Jeno had compiled after running around the district interrogating shady characters all day. But it seemed like he had obviously guessed right; the bartender’s hand had stopped in mid-slide in giving Haechan his drink.

In the corner of his eye, Haechan could see Jeno’s hand slowly creeping towards his hidden gun holster.

“And what do you know about Shiraishi Yasuo?” said the bartender slowly. His hand was still gripping the glass.

Haechan’s lips started to curl upwards. “I know that Shiraishi is one of the biggest drug lords walking in this city. I know that he’s connected to that townhouse that blew up in Sector 6 last week. Now,                I don’t know what his connection is to the den, but what I do know is that this bar doubles as a distribution site for him, you obviously work for him, and you’re going to give me some answers about Shiraishi Yasuo.” His voice was no louder than a deadly whisper. He was sure he’s got him now.

The bartender was staring back at him with an impassive expression. Jeno’s hand was hovering over his gun.

Then suddenly the bartender pulled back with a smile, leaving the drink in front of Haechan. His mind had a brief flash of confusion from the bartender’s reaction, before panic flooded in all too quickly. Did he have a lapse in judgement?

“I assure you sir, that although this establishment might encounter suspicious clients at times, I’m merely a bartender. I don’t know any Shiraishi Yasuos,” he said, still grinning.

_Shit!_ Haechan’s hand itched to slap that smile off of his face. _He played me!_

Still, he decided to continue down the intimidation route. "Look, man, you're a great liar and all, but it would make both our lives a hell of a lot easier if you cooperate."

"Sir," the bartender said mildly, "I think you're overreacting. Do your drinks need to be cut off?"

"Trust me, if I were overreacting I would've called the cops on this place already. Seeing that you're on Shiraishi's payroll by working here in the first place, I suggest you make the correct decision, unless you want to get locked up in one of the gov's labour camps."

"I can do the same for you, seeing that you barged into the bar and started threatening an employee for no discerning rea—"

Haechan had reached below his overshirt and pulled out his gun, pointing it at the bartender.

"I'm going to give you a chance to put that away first, sir," the bartender said quietly.

Haechan shrugged. "Sorry, it's nothing personal, but I've been out all day, I think I have a heatstroke, and I just want to get this done so I can go home. I'm sure you want the same, so I'll give you a chance to cooperate with me here, or else one of us won't be going home tonight."

The bartender's eyes hardened. "And I don't intend for it to be me."

He grabbed Jeno's unfinished rum and coke, and splashed the contents directly into Haechan's face. Sputtering, Haechan instinctively fired his gun. The bullet struck the wine bottles on the back shelf, shattering them. Before he could do much else, the bartender came at him with an open corkscrew. He aimed the gun to shoot again, but Jeno knocked the corkscrew out of the bartender's hand and pulled Haechan down to take cover behind the bar.

"Bastard!" cursed Haechan, wiping his face. "Got my shirt wet and everything!"

Jeno held his gun in both hands, checking around the corners. "What the _hell_ were you trying to achieve by pulling a gun on him?"

"I freaking had it, you saw," said Haechan. "He just needed one last push."

"Well that doesn't matter now when he's getting away," said Jeno. "Let's move."

They crept out from their cover, moving towards a door in the back marked "Employees Only". The bar was deserted by now, unfinished glasses spilling alcohol onto the tables. They stood on either side of the doorway, their backs against the wall. Jeno's hand closed on the doorknob, and he turned to Haechan, nodding. Haechan nodded back.

Jeno turned the doorknob open, and they barged in.

Someone was already waiting for them though the open door. Though he was pointing a gun in their direction, Jeno immediately placed a well-aimed shot at his chest, and Haechan moved forward to yank the gun from his hands by breaking his arm.

"We'll be needing that, thanks," said Haechan as the man collapsed, writhing in pain.

Seeing him on the ground, the two of them now recognized the man as one of the bar patrons from before.

"There'll probably be more of them later on," Jeno acknowledged.

They moved further into the employee only area, creeping silently amongst the cupboards of glasses and white cloths.

As they passed a pantry, two more popped out from around the corner, ambushing them from the side. Jeno launched a solid side kick into his assailant's abdomen. Haechan threw his to the ground, following up with a shot to the face. Two more bar patrons.

"You okay?" asked Jeno.

Haechan dusted off his sleeves. "Don't worry, you know I am. You?"

"Yeah."

They carried on, even taking a flight of stairs down to a basement. The usual back-of-the-bar appearance was starting to take a more clinical look, and they were also coming across more and more enemies. Now trapped in a corridor, Haechan and Jeno were forced to face them head on with the added disadvantage of being in an enclosed space. Every time they took one down, another would replace their spot.

Haechan had given up on using his gun here, electing to brandish his knife to do the dirty work. Blocking an incoming punch, he jabbed his attacker at an opening in between his ribcage. To the next, he rammed a palm strike into his nose, and pushed the stumbling man in front of a knife headed for his throat.

Jeno suddenly hissed in pain beside him, and Haechan turned to see him fending off three attackers at once. Dodging and slashing his way towards his teammate, he grabbed one of the attackers by the hair, pulled him back, and ran his blade clean across his carotid artery. He stabbed the next right in the stomach while Jeno dealt with the last of the three.

"You owe me on—" started Haechan, but Jeno quickly pulled out his gun and fired at something behind him. Turning around, Haechan caught the glimpse of a man with a serrated knife, falling backwards with a circular hole in his forehead.

"Not anymore," gasped Jeno.

"...Right. Thanks."

They finished taking down all their adversaries with some degree of difficulty, but something seemed suspicious to Haechan. It took them a long time to deal with them all: way too long.

"Where's the bartend?" said Jeno while carefully examining the fresh wound on his waist. "We took forever with these people."

"Farther down, probably." Haechan looked at Jeno's cut. It was bleeding, but thankfully it was a clean cut. The scar would be a small one. "Are you feeling alright?"

Jeno grimaced. "Just a scrape. A pretty shallow one too. A few stitches should do it."

Haechan took off his overshirt and handed it to Jeno. "Here. To stop the bleeding."

He muttered his thanks and began tying it around his torso.

As Jeno worked on his cut, Haechan looked at the direction leading them further into the basement, then back at the way they came from. He turned to Jeno. "I think we gotta split."

"Are you crazy? This is exactly what you _shouldn't_ do in a horror movie!"

"There's only one exit out of this basement, and that's the way he'll have to come up. One of us goes down to chase him out, and the other intercepts him at the top."

Jeno stared at him in disbelief.

Haechan only gave him a brief moment to let the plan sink in, before turning around and continuing farther into the basement. "I'll go down if it makes you feel any better," he called. "Just be ready when he gets here."

"Wait, Haechan. Haechan!"

He only responded with a wave of his hand.

It was quiet as he continued. Everyone had either been spent on the frontal assault in the hallway or had fled, Haechan assumed. The path led to a doorway at the end of the hallway, closed by a metal door with a combination lock. The door easily swung open inwards when Haechan simply pushed it.

A warehouse awaited him inside. Boxes upon boxes of what could only be drugs inside were stacked on rows of metal wire shelves. Printed sticker labels were neatly stuck in the top corners, detailing the client, drug type, weight, and order number.

His hands tightened around his pistol as he walked in. _Easy, too easy. What's happening here?_

"Just you here?"

Haechan whirled around, gun raised and pointed to the source of the voice. The bartender. He held a gun as well.

"Where's your friend?" he asked.

"Not here," Haechan said shortly.

"Is he dead? You did have to go through a lot of people to get here."

Haechan didn't answer. His gun can do the talking when it needs to.

"What's wrong? You were so talkative up there."

"If I recall correctly, it should be you that's talking, not the other way around."

The bartender paused. "You're Neo City government, aren't you? Police or military? Or maybe even counterintelligence?"

"How do you know I'm not from a rival gang?"

He chuckled. "I'll give you a tip for the next time you go digging around, agent. Us 'criminals' get straight to the point; our lives are too short for flowery words."

"Then I'll get straight to the point too," said Haechan. "You're gonna come with me now and answer a few of my questions. Whether you come with me nicely or not determines how nicely I'm gonna ask you the questions. Now, which is it gonna be?"

"You want answers?" said the bartender, "Then catch me."

He suddenly took off, running behind a shelf full of boxes. Haechan's bullet narrowly missed, finding its way into a cardboard box and emitting a puff of white powder. He sprinted after the bartender, weaving in between the shelves, firing a bullet whenever he had even the slightest glimpse of his figure.

The bartender retaliated with bullets as well. To Haechan's surprise, he was a crack shot, and this made for too many close calls for comfort. The corners of the shelves saved him from suffering a gunshot wound more times than he could count.

As they kept up the deadly game of cat-and-mouse, Haechan set to shoot again. He could see the figure of the bartender, walking the neighbouring aisle. He silently raised his gun, steadied his grip, took aim, and waited, waited, waited to pull the trigger—

_Click._

He was out of ammo.

_Oh, for fuck's sake._

The bartender laughed. "Time's up, agent."

He pushed the closest shelf against him. Everything started to tilt towards Haechan, slipping off the ledges, falling on top of him like a tidal wave of cardboard and metal and drugs.

He raised his arm above his head, curling up into a ball. Everything screamed in pain as it all came crashing down.

By the time it had stopped hurting enough for him to focus, he could hear the hiss of a lighter being ignited.

"What're you…" Haechan slurred. He tried to move, but any movement made would cause stars to swim across his vision.

"You know, you actually seem like an interesting person to talk to. If you weren't a gov agent going around asking the wrong questions, I'd want you in my bar," the bartender mused. Picking up a lone piece of cardboard, he held it above the small flame of the lighter. It caught fire, and he dropped it into a pile of white powder and cardboard. The fire burst to life and followed wherever the scattered trails of powder went.

"Who...who're you?" breathed Haechan.

"That I can answer," said the bartender. "I want you to know, as you die a dog of the government, that my name is Shiraishi Yasuo, and I am the owner of the Hanabi Speakeasy."

His target had been right in front of him all along. His survival instincts began to kick in, in one last futile effort to catch Shiraishi, and also because he certainly didn't want to die. He stirred, desperately trying to push the loaded box that was crushing him down.

Shiraishi was walking away towards the exit. Haechan's arms burned as he used all the strength he can to finally push the box off. It rolled off with a thud. He was about to get up, go through the gap in the shelf, but— _goddammit, my leg is stuck!_

Looking at the exit through the flames, he could see that the drug lord was already at the door.

"No, no, no, NO!" shouted Haechan. He pulled as hard as he could, but he could feel that his pants were tugging against him, snagged on something in the mess.

"Don't worry, agent. It's nothing personal." Haechan could hear the amusement in Shiraishi's voice. He gave Haechan one last smirk and pulled the metal door closed. The clang of the door echoed with finality.

"Shit!" With the prospect of death on the horizon, Haechan yanked himself out as hard as he could, his leg be damned. Thankfully, his leg came along with him, but the sound of ripping fabric meant that his pants were now totally ruined. A sharp pain dragged down on his leg. Whatever had caught on his pants, it had left him a cut.

Stumbling out of the collapsed shelf, he found himself facing a wall of fire. He took a breath, as much as he could in this smoky room. He had to get through the fire to reach the door. Covering his face and ducking his head, he found the biggest gap he could in between the flames and leapt. He could hear the roar of the fire as he passed through.

Landing on his bad leg, he fell, but remembering that he had just jumped through fire, he followed the simple instructions of stop, drop, and roll.

Once he was sure that whatever fire that was on him was now extinguished, he half-ran, half-limped to the metal door.

"Hey! Get me out!" he screamed, pounding on the door. "Shiraishi, you hear me? Get me the fuck out of here!"

He thought that maybe he could bust down the door with his shoulder, but after his first attempt, he remembered that the door opened inwards. Trying to bust it open inside would be hopeless.

_Wait, there's Jeno!_

"Jeno!" He was drumming his fists against the door with renewed vigor, trying to make as much of a racket as he could. "Jeno! Come help me! JENO! LEE JENO!"

An eternity seemed to be passing as he screamed and shouted and beat the shit out of the door. The smoke was becoming thicker, consuming the room in a dark grey cloud. Haechan was now forced to crouch down so he wouldn't pass out from smoke inhalation. His head and his body were already feeling light, and somewhere within his delirium, he deducted that it was probably from the fumes of the burning drugs.

_I refuse to believe that I'm going to die trapped in this pathetic druggie warehouse._ His mind raced to scramble coherent thoughts together. _Jeno better get his shit together and get down here!_

As if he had somehow heard Haechan's prayers, Jeno's muffled voice came from outside the door. "Haechan?! Are you in there?!"

"Yes I am," he wheezed as he caught a puff of smoke, "And now help me get the hell out!"

"I'm coming, okay?" said Jeno. "Just move out of the door's way!"

"Yep, sure…" Haechan weakly dragged himself off to the side, next to where the door would open.

He could hear the telltale _bang-bang-bang_ of gunshots, then heavy thumps on the metal. Jeno had shot the lock, and was now trying to knock open the door.

_Come on, please hurry up, man,_ Haechan hazily thought.

After a few more rather violent thumps, the door flung open, and Jeno stumbled in. "What the hell happened here?" he said, looking at the fire in horror.

Haechan struggled to his feet, and hobbled over to Jeno. "Holy shit, dude, I'm so happy see you, I can kiss you right now."

"Now is really not the time, man. We've gotta get out of this place." Jeno let Haechan support himself on his shoulder, but looked into his face, brows furrowed. "Wait, are you high?"

"Not the time, man. We gotta get out of here," Haechan reiterated, dodging the question.

“I freaking _told_ you it was a bad idea to split up!” Jeno huffed.

“And if we hadn’t split up, we’d both be trapped and barbecued with a cocaine crust or some shit down in the warehouse,” Haechan shot back. “You staying up here saved both our asses. Now can I get a ‘Thank you for your brilliant plan, Donghyuck- _ah_ ’?”

“I don’t know what kind of world you’re living in, but ‘brilliant’ does _not_ equal to ‘crazy’ in this one.”

He ignored Jeno’s remark. “Oh, you’re welcome, Jeno- _yah_.”

As they clumsily made their way upstairs, Haechan realized, "Wait, did you get Shiraishi?"

"Who? …Wait, the bartender?! That's him?!"

"Oh my god, please tell me you got him."

"I put a couple of bullets into him, but his lackeys were here to pick him up and I wasn't about to get killed by them!"

Haechan shook his head. "Whatever, it's fine. We have new info that we can work with now."

When they made it to street level, they practically threw themselves outside to gasp in the fresh air. They weren't feeling too great either; Haechan's leg was throbbing, and Jeno was clutching Haechan's bloodied shirt to his side.

After a few more breaths of the soothing evening air, Haechan pulled out his phone. "I'm gonna report back. Can you call the fire department here?"

Jeno nodded.

Haechan quick-dialed Mark's number and waited.

"Hey, you guys done your search?" Mark's voice sounded way too chipper for the situation.

"Yeah, and a little more than that." Haechan sat down on the curb and ripped a patch of fabric from his ruined pants to wipe the blood off his leg. "Listen, you know anything about a Shiraishi Yasuo?"

"Umm...the drug lord, right?"

"Yeah, him. He was the one running the townhouse we blew up. We gotta get him first to figure out the connection between him and Winwin- _ge._ "

"Yep, noted. And is Jeno there? Renjun wants to let him know he left behind his charging adapter behind yesterday."

Haechan quickly glanced over at Jeno, who was talking on the phone. "He's busy calling emergency services over right now, but I'll let him know."

"Emergency ser—what did you guys do?!"

"Don't worry, we'll write it up in our report later. Oh, by the way, if you guys are going out for dinner tonight, don't wait up. We gotta make a stop at the hospital first."

"The hospital?" Mark's voice was getting higher and higher. "Donghyuck, seriously, what the hell did you two—"

"OkaybyeMark- _hyung_!" Haechan quickly wrapped up the call and hung up on his sputtering commander.

As the two special operatives waited for emergency services on the curb, two things were becoming clear to Haechan.

One, he needs to bring more ammo in the future.

And two, after everything, he really owes Jeno that rum and coke.

 


End file.
